Mental Rift
by sonikkugirl8
Summary: A couple of gashes from what should have been a simple ghost fight make Danny act VERY strangely soon after. Just what was the deal with that strange ghost that tried making off with Jack and Maddie, and can a cure be found for whatever it did to the protector of Amity Park?
1. Prologue

_**(A/N: Whelp, this is the first time I've ever written a Danny Phantom fan fic. Should be pretty fun expanding my horizons a bit. Also, pretend 'Phantom Planet' doesn't exist, thank you kindly. And don't worry about the current short length. Future chapters oughta be longer. Hope you guys enjoy.)**_

Prologue

He flew as fast as he possibly could go, desperate to keep up with the ghost who had his parents effortlessly cradled, one in each hand. Only a moment ago had they all been the ones fighting, his mother trying to shoot him with an ecto cannon, his father attempting to distract him with ill formed taunts that only a fudge loving simpleton such as himself could come up with. Despite them not landing a single attack this time, it was frustrating for him. If only he could tell them who he really was, then he wouldn't have to worry about them hurting anyone in their sad but increasingly smart attempts to catch him, up to and including themselves. At least, that's the outcome he hoped for. For all he knew, they may just try and finish the job that fateful accident left halfway done on the spot.

The ghost wasn't anyone he knew. There really wasn't anyone he could think of that wanted to go directly for those two except for maybe Vlad, and even then only his mother would be the one getting carried off. And this punk looked nothing like Vlad. It was the same size as the vampiric looking fruit loop, and it had a garish looking cape to boot, but the similarities stop there. It didn't have any sort of discerning form, but rather a normal, non specialized ghost that just had an interesting fashion sense.

The ghost was very quick and an expert dodger. It took him a long time to finally reach a good speed and catch up, and even then it knew how to fight back. Each time it got close, either his parents would kick and scream, not wanting to be saved by their rival and enemy of all people, or the ghost would try and slash him into pieces. It got a few hits, leaving ectoplasm gushing wounds and rips in his suit. This was getting ridiculous, he thought to himself. With enough force gathered, he shot a few ecto blasts from one hand, covering his wounds with the other. The annoying ghost went barreling down, dropping his parents safely on the ground and giving them something else to chase after for awhile.

He laughed to himself as he watched the poor creature run for its afterlife, but all of the sudden, a wave of nausea hit him like a truck. The wounds weren't oozing anymore, and they didn't hurt too much, but even so, they felt… odd. The dizzy feeling eventually became too much to bare, and he hit the ground when he wasn't feeling up to flying anymore. White rings traveled up and down his body to revert him to human, the last thing he saw before the still lingering strange and dizzy feeling made him pass out.

And so from that moment, the real fight began...


	2. Chapter 1- Day 1: The Hazy Feeling

Day 1: The Hazy Feeling

Danny awoke to a pounding migraine. It was close to sunrise, the sun's orange and yellow rays peeking out through thick grey clouds. Confused at his location, he looked around and found himself to be in a side alley right next to a few office buildings. He groaned as he shook himself off and tried as hard to stand as the pounding in his head allowed. He wobbled unsteadily like a drunkard for a few moments before supporting himself on a wall, afraid he would just topple over at any moment. Only one question was on his mind at the moment within his drowsy mind:

"What happened last night…?" Danny asked quietly to himself, voice barely above a whisper to avoid agitating the previously mentioned migraine. He sifted through his memories and could only vaguely recall something having to do with his parents… and that's when something else clicked. What time was it? Danny panicked as he finally caught on to the rising sun.

"Sunrise?!" He had to wake up every weekday morning at 6:30 to get ready for school. At that time, the sun barely peeks out, much like now, and he definitely knew it was only Tuesday.

"Mom and Dad are gonna kill me if I'm not there when they come wake me up…" With no time to spare, Danny attempted to shift into his ghost form and fly home, but all he got for his efforts was a worsening headache. He cried out in pain and clutched his head, waiting for it to die down. At the same time, a vague staticy feeling in back of his mind began to gently creep up. He decided to ignore it for now, and took off running for home once enough pain subsided.

* * *

As Danny ran all over the streets of Amity Park, a feeling of dread rose up as he found he had just passed by Nasty Burger for the fifth time in a row: He had no idea where he was going.

To him all of the streets looked the same; he didn't recognize certain landmarks, such as city hall or the mall or even Casper High without a few minutes of VERY hard thinking, and the mental map he had made for himself had melded into one confusing, blurry blob. To make matters worse, he managed to peek at a clock and found it was almost 6:50. Danny began running like mad trying to find Fenton Works, panic making the task even more difficult. Finally, at 7:30 on the dot, he found his way home, where his mother, Maddie, was waiting for him right outside the front door.

"Danny, there you are! Where have you been, young man?" his mother said, tapping her foot, not trying to hide her worry or anger.

"I-I… uh…" Danny tried coming up with an excuse, but his still groggy mind wouldn't let him. Plus the more he tried to think, the more pain he would feel.

Maddie's features softened as she got a closer look at her disheveled looking son. His clothes and hair were a mess and he was covered in bruises and scratches, like he had recently gotten into a fight. Luckily for Danny, she seemed to temporarily focus on that.

"Oh, Danny…" She embraced her son in a hug, only for him to cry out. Immediately recoiling, she noticed that he had not-so-fresh, but still tender looking gashes on his chest. Worry spread across her face as she crouched down to see the injury better. "How did you get these?"

"Get what…?" Danny asked. He looked down and almost jumped when he saw the gashes. He thought it might have had something to do with last night, but, again, those memories failed to come to him. All he got in return was a sudden dizzy spell, causing him to struggle with the simple act of standing once again. Maddie noticed quickly and helped him inside.

"We'll talk about this later, mister. Now you march right onto that couch and relax." She ran to the bathroom to retrieve gauze and rubbing alcohol, leaving Danny alone for a bit on the couch. The dizziness hadn't gone away this time, and it made the entire room spin like he was lying on top of a tornado. He put a cushion over his head and quietly groaned into it. The migraine decided to kick back in, too.

"Ugh, make it stop…!" he pleaded to the rotating, swerving ceiling.

After what seemed like forever, Maddie finally returned with medical supplies. She managed to patch him up, the pain never ceasing. In the rush to heal her son, she had forgotten to tell Jazz and Jack she had found him. Maddie mentally slapped herself, knowing full well Jack was tearing apart the lab in search of a proper weapon, convinced once again a ghost had kidnapped her son in the dead of night while they were out hunting.

"Hold on for a minute, Danny." She got up from her crouching position and sighed. "Jack, Danny's back!" she called down to her husband, making Jack pop his head through the doorway with a confused expression and accidental injuries.

"Danno, you're okay!" He bear hugged his son and kept asking him random questions about ghosts as usual, but Danny didn't really catch any of it. He was too busy trying to fend off the twinkling little lights beginning to dance in his vision. He was pretty sure that whatever was making them, his dad squeezing him to death wasn't helping. Danny eventually wriggled out of his father's arms with effort, staggering where he stand with a dazed expression. He tried to shake it off: No way in hell was he about to pass out right now. Not in front of his worried-as-is parents. Even so, the hazy feeling that had formed earlier, the one that prevented him from remembering his way home, was back with a vengeance, much to his dismay.

Jack was the first to notice Danny's unsteadiness, seeing as though he just got shoved off so rudely. "You alright, son?" he asked with a concerned tone. He placed a hand on his young son's shoulder only to receive a slap right onto his palm. Jack looked into his son's eyes, and found that the usually bright, clear, and inviting blue eyes his son had had become clouded and glazed. "Danny?" He tried again and was met with a whimper every time he got too close. It was almost as if he didn't recognise him.

Or, in actuality, he was being mistaken for someone else.

* * *

"St-Stay away from me… I-I don't wanna be a pelt on your wall…" Danny looked down, shaking like a leaf, just to avoid the gaze of Skulker imposingly glaring at him. Somehow the bounty hunter had made himself tower even MORE over the young teenager, just bordering on _Kaiju_ levels, and all Danny could feel was fear; not defiance, or the desire to fight the hunter off, but true horror and fear.

* * *

"Honey?" Maddie asked, a bit taken aback by her son's delirious mumblings. She was able to avoid making Danny more anxious when she tried getting near him and was shocked when she discovered her son was burning up. She took his temperature and found him to have an alarmingly high fever of 103. For a normal human, this was bad enough, but for a halfa like him, unbeknownst to his parents of course, this was potentially detrimental. It meant something was seriously wrong with his core for it to be so warm, especially when ghosts are supposed to be near ice cold.

So, to anyone who knew this, specifically Jazz as she was walking down the steps when it happened, it wouldn't be any surprise that Danny collapsed and fainted a few moments later as he was being helped up the stairs.


	3. Chapter 2- Day 1: Delirium

Day 1: Delirium

Jazz had just been all over the upper half of Fenton Works looking for her baby brother inside. She knew that he had gone out ghost hunting the night before and just wanted to look outside, but her mother had already called that duty. Jazz thought looking inside of the house was stupid; if Danny was gone or trying to hide, why would he still be in the building? It was her dad's idea, she reminded herself.

She was about to sneak off into the Ghost Zone in the Specter Speeder to look in there, but was interrupted by unexpectedly seeing her brother passing out on the steps. Jazz looked at her parents in disbelief.

"Why didn't you guys tell me you found him?!" She yelled, trying to let the anger of being sent on, essentially, a wild goose chase when they already found him wash over the incredible amount of worry she felt over Danny fainting like that.

"He was so banged up, we sort of… forgot…?" Jack said, flustered for obvious reasons.

Jazz groaned loudly and slung Danny over her shoulder with as much strength as she could muster. "I'll take him up to his room."

"I'll call the school and make an appointment with the doctor. Let us know if he comes to right away." Maddie said, and she and Jack took off to get things set up for what is sure to be a long day.

"Be sure to call Sam and Tucker too!" Jazz called before her parents were too engrossed in their task to hear.

* * *

It took all of ten minutes for Sam to come bursting through the bedroom door when she got the call, panting to signify she'd been running VERY quickly. Jazz jumped and shot Sam a look of surprise before beckoning her to close the door. She had some news that she REALLY didn't want her parents to hear.

"Is Danny alright?!" Sam screamed in a panic. Somehow, Maddie using the phrases 'fainting', 'roadkill', and 'Danny' in the same sentence over the phone wasn't good for the teenager's stress levels.

"He's still out like a light, but that's not what's got me worried," Jazz said taking her own thermometer out of her brother's mouth. He felt like his skin would burst into flames at any point, making Jazz swallow hard as she showed Sam the temperature she took. "103.6"

"Why is he so warm…?" Sam shakily asked. The normally calm and confident girl couldn't contain herself. "What happened to him?"

"I don't know," Jazz admitted, "The two of us were talking in my room. Danny had just had a nightmare and he wanted to discuss it with me in private. I finally got him to start explaining it when his ghost sense went off and he left, and he never came home. Mom and Dad left too. Must have saw Phantom out the window and wanted to chase after him."

"You don't think his parents did something to him, do you?" Sam asked warily, a bit of fury shining through before Jazz shot it down.

"I don't think so. I heard them complaining how they couldn't get a single hit in, so it couldn't have been them. Maybe it was the ghost." Sam was about to say something when Tucker shot himself through the door, in worse physical condition than Sam from running so fast.

"And now I know those gym appointments you told Valerie you were going to were a lie. Tsk, tsk, Tucker." Sam deadpanned, a small smirk planting itself on her lips. At least messing with Tucker would be a good coping mechanism for their current situation.

"Hey, I've been going!" Tucker said defensively, "It's just that I get distracted by all those female bodybuilders…" Tucker let his eyes glazed over as he temporarily imagined going on a date with one said bodybuilder, only to get a smack in the head from Sam as a result. "Ow!"

"Those girls are WAY out of your league, Tuck. Plus if you tried asking one out, they'd snap you in half." Sam chuckled and Tucker grumbled to himself before getting interrupted by Jazz. Tucker was filled in on the situation before the eldest of the group began firing out orders.

"Back to the matter at hand, people! Tucker, I need you to go get a bunch of ice packs, STAT!"

"On it!" Tucker left the room in a flash, pausing once in awhile to catch his breath.

"Sam, go and get me a bucket and bowl of soup from the kitchen." Sam nodded and left down the stairs to the kitchen.

Tucker came back first, with about 5 ice pack in his hands. He was shivering to warm his arms from the cold things assaulting him, so he quickly handed the packs to Jazz. "Where's your parents, anyway?"

"The phone broke after they finished calling you two, so they had to go to the hospital and school in person. We've got about 3 hours to figure out what's wrong with Danny.

"Okay. I think Mr. Lancer will understand Sam and I not being there after a few hours of thinking and a good book." Tucker said. How could either of them care about school at a time like THIS, after all. The ice packs were safely put on Danny to try and get his temperature down, which, thankfully, got it down to 100 almost immediately and by the time Sam came with the soup, it was back to normal at just below 90.

"All I could find was a half full can of chicken noodle. You guys really need to go shopping." Sam put the soup down on a table and the three of them waited for Danny to wake up. It took about a half hour more, but it finally happened. Danny moaned as he began to stir and his eyes began to flutter open. Sam and Tucker tried crowding around him anxiously but Jazz kept them back. She didn't know what to expect and Sam and Tucker up in his face when he's just waking up would probably scare him.

"Easy with him, you two. ...Little brother?" Jazz asked quietly.

Danny opened his eyes and looked around, tense at first but then calming down as he noticed the others. "Guys…?" he said, still dazed from his fainting spell.

"Are you alright, Danny? Jazz said you had a REALLY nasty fever, dude."

"I-I'm fine… just feel a little weird…" Danny said very quietly, slurring his words ever so slightly. It was pretty obvious he was still out of it by the way he looked at them, eyes glazed and half-lidded.

"Here, let me get you a new shirt. The one you're wearing is torn apart." Jazz went over to Danny's closet and picked out his normal white and red shirt to replace the boy's ruined pajamas. He had a lot of trouble getting it on himself, so Jazz had to help him like he was a 5 year old all over again, and he didn't complain once… it was a bit unnerving to say the least. Not as unnerving as the large bandages over his chest.

Sam held her hand up to her mouth as she gasped, Jazz stared in shock, while Tucker nearly fainted himself. The wounds underneath were still slightly oozing a mixture of blood and ectoplasm, along with a tinge of… purple? They all knew Danny's blood, sadly to say, and it never had anything purple. Red was obvious for a human, and while they never got over the green, it was only a sign of him being a halfa, but purple…?

"What…?" Danny said, oblivious to what they were looking at this time around. He tilted his head and waited for an answer, only for his eyes to widen once again soon after, as had happened with Jack and Maddie.

Sam came out of the shock first and waved her hand into her friend's blank eyes, and that's when all hell finally broke loose.

" _Get_ _ **AWAY**_ _from me!"_ Danny jumped as far back as he could into his bed. His face contorted into a frightening amount of rage and he attempted to call his ghost form right away, only to be stopped by his fierce migraine again. He cried out and held his head, but it didn't keep him down for long as he lunged at Sam and pinned her to the ground with an animalistic snarl.

"Danny, what the heck, dude?!" Tucker tried pulling Danny off of Sam with Jazz's help. Sam was left speechless at the display, only able to move enough to dodge punches aimed directly at her face and listen to the confused ramblings of her crazed pal.

* * *

It, for some reason, wasn't a tough battle. Walker wasn't putting up much of a fight like he usually did.

"Trying to attack me isn't looking good for your sentence boy…"

"Shut up, Walker!" Danny struggled against two of Walker's cronies holding him back as he tried wiping that smirk off of Walker's cruel uncaring face. The ghost boy wasn't sure how he got into the Ghost Zone so quickly, or ended up so close to being in the hands of THIS creep, but he knew he wouldn't let Walker get away with… whatever it was he was trying to do. If only he would stay still for a few seconds! He just kept dodging his head like it was nothing. Wasn't trying to hit him back or ANYTHING! What gives?!

* * *

"Did he just say 'Walker'?!" Tucker half-yelled, half-screamed as he and jazz began to lose their grip.

"I think he's hallucinating!" Jazz suggested.

"Gee, you think?!" Sam snapped, still trying to dodge the flurry of punches coming her way. "Somebody snap him out of it before he knocks out all my teeth!" Another punch came down, making the floor have a gaping hole in its wake.

"QUIT DODGING SO I CAN HIT YOU!" Danny cried in blind rage, disturbingly not deterred by the pieces of splintered tile in his hand. As he wound his arm for another punch, Jazz thought of what to do, and stared at her own hand for a few moments. She didn't want to hurt her brother when he was in such a detached condition, but she didn't want Sam getting hurt either. She did the only thing she could think of and smacked Danny hard in the face, hoping at the very least it would distract him enough to come around fully. Thankfully, it made Danny blink a few times, causing him to return to reality.

"Wh-Where's… Walker?" He looked around for a few moments before noticing Sam and the holes. "Sam?!"

Sam only sighed in relief as she sat up and got back on her feet, unharmed by the attack. It didn't take very long for Danny to put two and two together for once.

"I wasn't fighting with Walker… was I?" He asked when it dawned on him. The others' silence spoke a thousand words, and he embraced Sam in a hug and streamed every apology he could think of. He was so flustered and in the moment, he didn't notice his hand right away. Jazz had to tap his shoulder and point it out to him for him to even get it treated.

Now that they had Danny calmed down and alert, they could finally get to the bottom of things… if he could ever remember what went on the night before.


	4. Chapter 3- Day 1: Blanks

_**(A/N: So sorry, guys, but it's been Senior Finals time and I've been too tired to write. I'm back though. Also had a case of writer's block but watching a few 2 DP episodes helped out.)**_

Day 1: Blanks

"How many time do I have to tell you guys?! I don't know what happened!"

It was one of the most frustrating spans of time Danny had ever experienced. And he had once had to deal with the musings of Ghost Writer.

He thought they would get the hint when he told them the first 37 times that no, he didn't remember a single thing. No he didn't know why his ice core was so warm or that everytime he tried using his ghost powers in human form or turn into Danny Phantom, he was met with a splitting headache. And he was as shocked as them when they told him that something weird and purple was in his blood on top of all of this. The only bright side of the whole half hour discussion was that he could finally think straight for a change. Well, almost. The haze was still there and it was making him angry. Really angry.

And so to try and calm himself down, he dug into the soup that was made for him. It was cold and the microwave obviously left its 'special touch', but at least it was something else to focus on.

"Maybe we could find something to jog his memory. If the ghost did something, then if we block whatever it is, even for a few minutes, it would help." Tucker pondered.

As they all considered an idea, Jack and Maddie burst through the front door.

"Kids, we're home!" Maddie called from downstairs, Sam and Tucker's faces paled with horror.

"We're supposed to be in school by now…!" Sam barely choked out to avoid alerting the two parents downstairs.

"I'll go distract them while you guys hide." Danny tried getting up, but was gently pushed back onto the bed before sighing to himself. There was no way he was getting out of bed on Jazz's watch.

"I'LL distract them. YOU stay right here," Jazz said, having Sam and Tucker sneak away inconspicuously while she distracted Jack and Maddie with telling them Danny was awake. They dashed up the stairs in a huff, ignoring the loud shuffling Tucker was making trying to fit with Sam in Jazz's closet next door.

"Hey..." Danny said tiredly upon their arrival. He curled under his covers when sitting up became too much and the room began to spin again.

"We were so worried about you, sweetie…" Maddie stroked his hair softly in an attempt to comfort her son. "Are you still dizzy? Do you need us to get you some medicine?" He immediately shook his head no. He hated taking medicine and he didn't want some right now, especially since he didn't know what was going on with his body and medicine could make it worse.

"That's okay, Mom. I think I just need to rest for awhile, and I'll be fine." Danny tried being as assuring as he could, if only to get his mom and dad to give him a little breathing room. He'd rather spend his time figuring out how to fix this than getting coddled. He was pretty sure his dad was convinced that this had something to do with ghosts, which it did but Jack didn't need to know that.

"Well… alright." Maddie said, defeat clear in her tone. She wanted to do everything in her power to make her boy feel better, completely forgetting him sneaking out was the reason he was like this at the time being. The two parents shared a look before leaving the house again to take care of outside business, leaving Jazz in charge.

The moment the front door clicked closed, Tucker was immediately thrusted from the closet with a swift kick by Sam. "The next time you put your feet on me THAT hard, I'll do more than leave a few kick bruises…" Sam said, clothes wrinkled and hair a mess. Apparently, the closet space was a little too tight for her liking.

"If I didn't, I would have popped out and we'd have gotten caught!" Tucker put a hand up in defense upon tumbling to his feet. Without further protest, the two of them put their attention back onto Danny, who at this point was trying to get out of bed to get his now empty bowl into the sink. 'Try' being a key word. His every step felt like his feet had become bricks and he swayed unsteadily in between each.

"Whoa there, Danny, I got it," Tucker attempted to take the bowl from his friend, but insisted on getting to the kitchen himself.

"Tuck, I can at least take a bowl down to the sink. I don't think I'm THAT sick."

"You ARE that sick if you're warm enough for you to faint and have dysfunctioning ghost powers." The trio turned their attention to Jazz, holding a Specter Deflector in one hand and a journal in the other.

"What's the Specter Deflector for?" Danny asked, breaking the silence. "That thing hurts me like heck and I don't really wanna be weaker than I already am."

"It's something I thought we'd try. It shuts off ghost powers and negates ghostly influences, right?" Jazz waited for a nod from them all before continuing. "Well, maybe, if we put this on Danny, whatever the ghost left in him will stop affecting him, at least for a little while until we take it off. Then maybe he can remember what happened and we can get some more insight on the ghost."

It took a little bit to fully grasp, but soon they all agreed it was a better idea than nothing and soon the SD was put around Danny's waist. It stung him a little at first until he was used to it, but the tiny amount of pain was nothing compared to the healthy feeling that swept through him. The haze quickly vanished, as well as the dizziness and fever, and the general crappiness he felt diminished considerably. Danny audibly sighed in relief, something you don't usually get when a halfa gets one of those power draining monstrosities on their person. "I feel better already…" He mused.

"Don't get used to it. We still have to take it off before Mom and Dad see you with it and get suspicious." Danny grumbled in frustration. Jazz can't just let him have a moment of relief without mucking it up with sense can she?

"You remember anything yet?" Tucker asked, and soon, Danny was spinning them a damn near perfect description of the culprit.

* * *

"It looked just like any kind of normal ghost. Looked like it raided Vlad's closet for a cape and let its claws grow out a little bit too much to be healthy, but other than that nothing out of the ordinary… oh and it looked like it tried to see if my haircut would work out for it, cause that's exactly the kind of style it had." Tucker muttered something about how 'Regular ghosts have hair?' before Sam slugged him in the shoulder for interrupting. Danny didn't seem to notice as he continued without missing a step.

"I got a bit of a glimpse of its face too. It had a really stupid and nasty grin on it, and a few times it stuck its tongue out at me while I was trying to save Mom and Dad."

"It was trying to take Mom and Dad away?!" Jazz cried in shock. Danny groaned silently and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah… forgot to mention that part."

With a new resolve, Jazz sat down at Danny's computer as the other three crowded around her. She immediately went into the Ghost Database to see if she could pin down who the culprit was and if it was anyone they knew. It wasn't placed into the database, and therefore, no one had any idea what this thing's deal was.

"I guess we've got a new punk to look out for…" Sam said with a frustrated sigh. As if the ghosts they ALREADY had to deal with wasn't enough already.

"Maybe we'll get lucky and it really _is_ just somebody working for Vlad?" Danny tried to have a positive outlook for it, trying to be in as much of a good mood as he could before he had to go back under the fog for his secret's sake. Even he had a difficult time believing that. Vlad wanted Danny almost as much as Maddie, and he didn't really think he would go as far as having this thing likely poison him.

Yes, poison was the first thing on everyone's minds to the issue. Some kind of venom coming from the claws. They were about to run tests to see for sure, but looking through the database took a few hours to get through thoroughly. The clock struck 4 in the afternoon the next time they checked, and the jiggle of the front door alerted them to Jack and Maddie's return.

"Get back in the closet, you two!" Jazz said, practically shoving Danny's friends into her room to hide. It wouldn't have made a difference. School was over by the time they came home. But Jazz was in such a hurry, it didn't really click. She also quickly got the Specter Deflector off of her brother, returning him to his groggy, semi-conscious state.

"Danny, Jazz, we're home!" Their mother called from downstairs, placing bags of groceries on the kitchen table.

"AND WE BOUGHT FUDGE!" Jack added, perceived by him to be a bonus. Danny moaned at all of the yelling, placing a pillow over his head.

Until they all figured out who that ghost was and made it give them a cure for Danny's condition, a splitting headache would be the LEAST of his problems. And somehow, he knew it.

 _ **(A/N: And thus, we come to an end of the events of the first day. Already, it's been pretty intense, what with the hallucinations and fainting spells, but hey, at least there's the Specter Deflector for relief.)**_


	5. Chapter 4- Day 3: Hard Interactions

_**(A/N: Just a bit of a sillier chapter before getting back into the angst.)**_

Day 3: Hard Interactions

For the sake of Danny's well being and mental health, he was allowed to stay home the next day as well. The entire time was spent fighting with Jazz on whether or not he was well enough to do something as simple as draw himself a hot bath or take himself to the couch and watch TV until he passed out, or even feed himself a jar of peanut butter with a spoon. It took him two hours to convince his sister not to spoon feed him, but he wasn't so lucky with Maddie, who took it upon herself to not only prepare every meal for him WITHOUT her precious ectoplasm imbuing cooking/death machines, but also to throw everything into a blender so he wouldn't have to bother chewing. His father also never got the hint to quiet down his loud voice so as to not send Danny into spasms of agony. This all became so bad for him that he was willing to take medicine just so he could sleep through it all, despite his better judgement. The only thing that could make that ensuing Wednesday worse would be if a ghost decided to show up... Oh, wait, Box Ghost showed up about a dozen times. There was also that.

Yes, the day before was absolutely awful. And the two siblings couldn't even research who the ghost was because of the smothering.

It was now Thursday. Maddie crept into Danny's room to gently wake her son up from a deep slumber, induced by being up until 5 in the morning by the master of all things cardboard and square.

"Danny honey, time to get ready for school." Maddie said, her tone chipper yet soft. A groan escaped his lips as he struggled to find the energy to open his eyes.

Thanks to the substance in his system, Danny felt worse than the other two days combined. He knew he couldn't let his mother know that without going into some unwanted territory, but he could barely hide something was still very wrong. As he tried getting out of bed, he had to fight the urge to scream, his muscles inflaming on every movement. Chills ran throughout his body, but he knew he was much warmer than the chills let on. The haze was now a recurring part of his day, being stronger at some points than others, and it was really powerful at the moment. He gazed a little at his mother trying to recognize her for the minute after she left the room to prepare breakfast, but eventually he just resorted to smacking himself in hopes of clearing his head.

"Just take a warm shower and you'll feel better…" he told himself, thankful Jazz was still asleep. She'd never let him take a shower by himself if she saw him like this. Biting back yelps, he forced his heavy legs to guide him to the bathroom. The warm water going down him loosened up his body, letting the pain stop, but the same couldn't be done for his mind. He fumbled with the faucet before getting the water to shut off, and he threw a towel over himself before heading downstairs without any clothes.

* * *

"Son… aren't you forgetting something?" Jack asked carefully. He would have never noticed it before, but he promised Maddie he would watch over Danny due to his ailment. It had turned their son into a far clumsier scatterbrain, and his parents had to be more attentive until this resolved. Danny never noticed he was still in a towel and Jack had to fight him on going back to his room to change. Danny was insistent he was in his proper clothes after all.

"Dad, what are you doing, I'm gonna be late!" the towel clad boy argued as he was finally half-carried into his room.

"Danny, we can't let you go out in only a towel. Just because I did it my freshman year of college… twice... doesn't mean you can do it now," Jack answered, sheepishly but firm. He really didn't want his son going through the same embarrassment. Danny's cheeks reddened as he finally saw himself in a mirror and got his dad out of the room to change.

When no one was watching, he snuck outside to try transforming again, at this point to see if he had a chance at avoiding being stuck with his overprotective sister, and to his shock, he actually managed it. White rings traveled up and down his body as he shifted into his ghost form. Unfortunately there was still the matter of his bad fever.

The fever worsened thanks to his natural temperature being even lower than it is in human form. Danny staggered on the spot after the initial relief left. He felt himself blacking out, so he immediately turned human again.

"Ghost form with high fever… bad idea…" Danny panted, blinking out the stars that made an appearance before heading back inside. He would have to see later if he could at least still use his powers in human form.

"Just, uh… went outside for some air," he called to his concerned mother, who shot a look when she saw him enter the house from her position in the kitchen. She sighed and didn't look further into it.

* * *

Coming back to school was probably the worst decision he could make at the moment. As he walked through the halls that morning in preparation for the day, he absentmindedly ran smack into Dash on the way to his locker, the last person he wanted to see.

'Oh, great…' Danny thought grimly to himself as he mentally prepared for the beatdown or locker shove to come. He was really in for it, he thought, for he saw spilt coffee, _steaming hot_ spilt coffee, drip from Dash's letterman jacket. In a swift motion, the jock had Danny pinned to the nearby lockers sporting an angry glare.

"Why don't you watch where you're going, Fenturd?!" Dash faltered a bit when he heard Kwan snicker at him behind the scenes, and looked back to give his best pal a glare.

As good a chance as any to see if he could still turn intangible, Danny focused on doing just that. Instead of the desired result, it only made Danny's foggy mind worsen in intensity. He let out a soft moan as his eyes glazed over and became unfocused once again, giving in to whatever sort of illness would plague him this time. He barely noticed at that point when Dash stopped yelling at Kwan and paid attention to him again.

"Next time you laugh at me like that I'll tell Paulina you're dating the goth nerd behind her back." Dash concluded.

"NO! Alright, fine, whatever…" Kwan said a little too quickly as he withdrew a little from the scene to pretend to go to his locker, only to stop when he saw Danny's current sickly looking condition. "Hey, Dash, you might wanna lay off a bit on Fenton. He ain't looking so good…"

"He looks fine to me. Probably just trying to play dead or something so I'll go away. You really think I'm that stupid, Fentina?!" The only response he got from his prey was a few slow blinks. "Come on, cat got your tongue?" Dash shook him a little to get a rise, but that only resulted in Danny turning green in the face. The smaller teen shoved Dash about a few feet off of him and made a break for the bathroom, leaving the jock dumbfounded. Danny was NEVER capable of that much strength or speed before in his eyes.

"Whoa, he almost made you hit the other lockers, dude… you think he's been working out?" Dash was too stupefied to answer, instead following after Danny into the bathroom. It wasn't like he cared or anything, but it wouldn't feel right to just leave the little nerd to be sick so early in the morning. Inside he found Danny hadn't even made it to one of the toilets before vomiting all over the floor. Dash was more than a little concerned at that point when he started throwing up blood as well.

"Geez, Fenton, you okay? C'mon, I didn't shake you that hard, you little baby." Dash said, still feeling the need to at least TRY and make the awkward feeling inside go away by continuing to casually bully him. When his voice didn't even make Danny flinch as he expected, he dropped the act.

"Kwan, get in here!" Dash called into the hall. He could tell he would need help for this.

Danny was finally able to stop after a few minutes, but that didn't mean it lifted the cloud. The only reason he was able to find the bathroom in the first place was because of the autopilot that activated in his mind; other than that, he was completely disoriented. With some help from Dash, Danny managed to get back onto his feet, barely able to keep his balance. Everything from that point on became a blur.

"Kwan, get me some wet paper towels so I can clean Fenton up."

The two athletes went about cleaning Danny and the boys' bathroom up like they were cleaning up a crime scene. If someone saw that Dash's bullying made someone THIS ill, he'd be kicked right off the team for sure!

They managed to get rid of all of the throw up, but Danny was still VERY out of it. On one hand, he probably wouldn't remember any of this from the way he was acting. He acted like Dash had given him some kind of concussion, but he didn't even slam him into the lockers that bad. Was Fenton already messed up before he even came to school?, Dash wondered.

On the other hand, even Dash was worried at this point. He may be a jerk, but he had a conscience. He knew a bunch of first aid from football, so maybe he could help a little.

"Fenton, how many fingers am I holding up?" Dash held up 3 and showed them off to Danny, who in a slurred voice told him he had elephants in his hand and not fingers.

"Should we get him to the nurse?"

"What are we supposed to tell her?" Dash asked in a huff, although he didn't get an answer immediately. Without warning, Danny snuggled up to Dash in a tight hug, a look of content clear on his face. He mumbled something about teddy bears and slowly closed his heavy eyes, at peace.

Dash did everything in his power to stop himself from dunking his head in the toilet from that, and tried to pry the smaller boy off. It didn't work, and what's worse, he heard Manson and Foley down the corner outside. He couldn't let them see Fenton like this!

With one final struggle, Dash managed to pull the very confused Danny off of him.

"Why don't you wanna hug me, teddy…?" Danny said, voice slurred as before.

Seeing he was in a passable condition, Dash shoved Danny away from him and grabbed Kwan, leaving as fast as he could. As long as there was no evidence on him, they couldn't pin this on him. Still… he couldn't help but feel the slightest tinge of worry remain inside him.

* * *

"Danny, dude, could you get off of me?" Tucker begged of his goofily smiling friend, who had his arms wrapped firmly around Tucker's waist in a tight hug. It was the end of the school day and he'd been hugging people all day! Sam couldn't help but snicker, and had she not known that it was the substance making Danny act like this, she would have found this an excellent opportunity for blackmail.

Only when Tucker finally got him off did Danny begin to regain clarity of mind. He looked around and realized Dash was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Dash…?" Danny said the moment he regained enough awareness to speak.

"Dash? He's been off the radar all day today. For an A-lister like him, I didn't think that was remotely possible." Sam replied.

Danny pondered for a bit before seeing a wall clock and finding out it was now about 4 in the afternoon. Last he remembered, it was about 7:45 in the morning! He noticeably jumped and got a dread-filled look on his face.

"Guys…? What have I been doing all day…?" Danny asked, not thinking he would like the answer, especially when he caught a few snickers sent his way by Paulina and Star.

Sam and Tuck exchanged surprised looks before telling him.

He was now known as Captain Huggles, the king of lovely hugs for all. Making it worse was the fact that he himself apparently started calling himself that midway through 2nd period.

Worse still, he just remembered the reason why Dash probably wasn't around…


	6. Chapter 5- Day 5: General Weakness

Chapter 5- Day 5: General Weakness

"Hey, Captain Huggles!"

Danny groaned to himself as he turned to the screamer with an angry glare, trying to hold back his frustration and desire to have an ecto blast send them into a couple layers of wall. Luckily, he still had his self control and didn't want to even THINK about using his powers again for awhile.

The screamer was none other than Paulina, who he had long since gotten over, so he didn't feel too bad when he shot back with a 'What' laced with more venom than he wanted to give. He couldn't really help it however. He was still very sick, or, now that he and the rest of Team Phantom got a chance to go to the lab and investigate yesterday, very badly poisoned. Plus, people had been calling him that all day and he was tired of it.

"What? Not feeling up to coming over here and sharing your 'sunshine' with me?" Paulina shot back with a sneer, her little A-Lister buddies laughing like maniacs at the situation, at least except for Kwan. Still no sign of Dash either. Instead of satisfying them with an answer, Danny banged his head on his locker door before closing it and walking off to go look for his friends. This made Paulina feel very offended.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, loser!" Paulina stamped her feet in frustration when Danny still wouldn't give her the time of day. She sent some of the jocks after him, and smiled in satisfaction when he was shoved swiftly into his locker. "Come on, he's not worth it anyways." The others left, and Kwan made sure they were gone before opening the door again.

"Uh… thanks?" Danny said, confused.

"Listen, man… Dash has been avoiding you like the plague. He skipped school after you started getting all weird and huggy and stuff."

"You're saying a few hugs got Dash to wimp out and skip? Huh, maybe I should try that on him more often…" Danny said with a mischievous smirk. Seeing Dash so worked up about their little encounter Wednesday morning made his mood brighten until he figured out what it might mean. He _did_ remember very little about what happened.

"This is serious, Fenton. You got really messed up and Dash thinks he had something to do with it."

Oh…

"Dash is actually guilty…?" On any other occasion, he probably would have milked it for all it was worth, but he couldn't have anybody taking the blame for something like this. Plus, Dash would only start digging, and Heaven knows what even a dumbass like the blonde jock could find out.

"Well, tell him he doesn't have anything to worry about. I, uh… I was already coming down with the flu when I came…?" Danny suggested, hoping Kwan would buy it.

"You came to school with the flu? … … … MAN, that's gutsy, dude." Kwan gained a bit of respect for the 'sick' Fenton. He sure wouldn't have come to school sick like he was. He finally closed the locker door on Danny again and left to call Dash and tell him that he could come back now.

"HEY!" Danny yelled upon getting locked in once again, and sighed in resignation. Without intangibility, it would be impossible to get out without someone finding him. The late bell soon rang, and he had time to think while he was trapped in his locker. He REALLY didn't like what he learned from the quartet's lab excursion.

* * *

 _The four of them quickly slipped into the lab undetected. Jack and Maddie had gone out on ghost patrol since no one had seen any sign of Danny Phantom for almost four days now. Ghost attacks were strangely lacking in correlation, but it didn't mean none of them could just rest. A ghost could come out at any moment, of course!_

 _The Specter Deflector was placed around Danny's waist and immediately he was well enough to help his friends and sister without having tremors from his stiff muscles. Though begrudgingly at first, many blood samples were taken from the boy, and a quick centrifuge visit separated the substance from blood. Simply being exposed to its isolated form made Danny nearly get sick all over again, and that was with the Specter Deflector on._

 _They analyzed the substance for awhile, drawing up blanks, until a surprise visit from Ember paused their progress. They were battle ready, almost daring her to make a move and attack, but she surprised them further by collapsing on the lab floor, coughing up heavy amounts of tainted looking ectoplasm and weakly begging them for help._

 _Danny knew she wasn't trying to trick them because she called him by his actual name instead of 'Dipstick' or 'Baby Pop'. She almost NEVER did that. Plus she didn't have her guitar with her, making the situation even MORE worrisome._

 _As they took an ectoplasm sample from her too, Ember went into a fit of delirium. It was very similar to Danny's previous bouts, only hers was somehow more warped than when he almost knocked Sam's teeth out. With her, she went on into a violent crying fit and kept telling Tucker, who she was adamant was the now eternally sleeping Pariah Dark, to leave her alone and not make her fade out of existence. She nearly clawed Tucker's eyes out in 'retaliation', but they managed to somehow sedate her with one of Jack's old inventions. 'Useful for pacifying ghosts', he once said, and they would need it._

 _Other familiar ghosts managed to find their way to Fenton Works: Youngblood covered in self-inflicted wounds with the face of a shell shocked soldier; Technus thinking he was infected with a deadly computer virus while banging his head into the walls repeatedly; even Spectra was completely beside herself, unable to even recognize Bertrand as he tried to help her regain her composure and snap her out of her heavy cloud of confusion; Bertrand himself 'fainted', or went into dormancy (basically ghost unconsciousness) multiple times in doing so. Many more ghosts arrived as well in similar or even worse states._

 _And based on their condition and the results of their ectoplasm tests, they and Danny were all suffering from the same thing._

 _Whatever this ghost was, it had been busy and had been going at it for awhile._

 _They did the best they could for the ailing ghosts and sent most on their way, keeping Ember with them to treat her when it was clear she'd been battling this longer than any of them. They tried asking if she knew anything, only to be met with incoherency. By the time they hid the poor ghost rocker inside of Jazz's room when Maddie and Jack came back, she had fallen off the deep end completely, and only the invention could get her quiet enough to not alert their parents. They'd been taking care of her ever since under their noses. Yes, Ember was still technically their enemy, but they couldn't just… leave her like that. It would be too cruel, even for her._

 _It was also a healthy reminder of what Danny could devolve into if nothing was done fast enough._

* * *

The memory of seeing all of those sick ghosts made Danny audibly shudder. That was where he was headed, and he didn't like it.

"When I find the ghost that did this, it's gonna pay…" He said to himself darkly. It wouldn't be pretty for the little poison spreader when Danny finally got a cure in him and was well enough to find it… y'know, if a cure could be found.

Seeing as though it would probably a long while before anyone found him, Danny fell asleep, something he hadn't really done properly since this whole thing started.

Unfortunately, even his dreams wished to torment him.

* * *

"He said he would be here early today…" Sam said to Tucker. It was lunch time and Danny hadn't shown up yet.

"Maybe he got held up by a ghost…?" Tucker said, unconvinced with himself. Now that they knew the majority of the Ghost Zone's residents had been attacked by this… creature (wasn't sure if he could really call this monster a ghost), they knew even the Box Ghost wouldn't dare show up in a condition like that. When Boxy himself didn't even show up the day before because the slightly coherent Lunch Lady said he's been in some kind of ghost coma for days now, it was unanimously decided they should really be more worried about Danny than ever.

"Tucker, don't even joke like th-" Sam said with a glare, and the two were stopped in their tracks by a familiar sounding whimper. "Was that Danny?" When the whimper happened again, and became more urgent, the duo ran to look for the source and came to stop in front of the boy's locker, the door shaking violently. Sam growled and Tucker couldn't contain his frustration either. Why couldn't the A-Listers just leave the poor boy alone for a day or two?

"Danny, are you okay in there…?" Sam asked softly, trying not to draw attention to themselves. No response from other than more strained whimpers. "Danny?" she tried again, getting the same result. With very little options to get him out without freaking him out further, she turned to Tucker.

"Tucker, he told you his combination, right?"

"Nope. He got it changed and wouldn't tell me what it was. Something about 'too many PDA's stowed away in there when you have your own locker?' I mean really, how is 39 _too many_ PDA's…?" Tucker scoffed.

Sam groaned and dragged Tucker with her to the nearest janitor closet. They 'borrowed' a crowbar and with a few pushes, they got the door open, with only few dents to boot. Inside they found a disheveled looking Danny, fast asleep and locked in a terrifying nightmare. The two friends gave each other a glance before carrying him off to an abandoned classroom. Everyone was still in the cafeteria, so they had little opposition.

Even when Danny 'woke up' minutes later, it was like he was still locked in his dream. He scuttled away and hid under a group of desks, cowering when Tucker tried rubbing his back to calm him down. The teacher the classroom belonged to found them and tried the same thing, only for Danny to bolt out of the classroom and somehow end up on the roof, even without his powers. When they finally found him, he came out of it, and couldn't remember how he got up there.

"Y'know, I'm really getting sick of these blackouts…" Sam and Tucker nodded slowly, and the teacher accompanying them could only look on in shock of how he recovered so quickly.

 _ **(A/N: So, Danny isn't the only one going through this after all. What is this ghost's intentions? Why would it go through the trouble of infecting nearly the entire known parts of the Ghost Zone? Did Vlad get infected too, or is he really behind all of this? Was Dani able to avoid this or is she also suffering?)**_


	7. Chapter 6- Day 5: Detachment

Chapter 6- Day 5: Detachment

The school day quickly came and went after Danny's small episode during lunch passed, and Team Phantom raced home. They were hoping Ember was still sedated, otherwise things were about to get ugly quickly. Thankfully, Danny's parents were once again on patrol, so they could be as loud and frantic as they wanted for prepping to deal with her.

The ghost shield was a given. Now that Phantom was supposedly 'out of commision' as far as Jack and Maddie and the rest of the town knew, turning on the ghost shield upon coming home was one of Jazz's chores. Tucker grabbed a spare Thermos and a toned down Ecto Gun, Sam grabbed a net and the Jack-O-Nine-Tails, and Danny had the 'Fenton Snoozer', as they learned it was called, in hand. They wished they didn't have to arm themselves against someone so ill, but it was only taking precaution after all. Ember was still a decently leveled and dangerous ghost, guitar or not.

Fully equipped, the group went over to Jazz's closet and found the ghost rocker still unconscious.

"Wow, the Snoozer really works, doesn't it…?" Tucker asked himself silently.

"Come on, let's get her on the bed," Danny said as he tried carefully lifting the ghost onto Jazz's mattress. Seeing how their parents took the Deflector for maintenance and upgrades, he did a not so good job of it. Just trying for a few minutes to lift the surprisingly heavy Ember made the room spin. Sam noticed this, and carefully escorted him to his room while Tucker and Jazz handled Ember.

"Maybe you should sit this one out," Sam softly told him and she helped him onto his own bed.

"Sam, I'll be fine. See, I'm not even dizzy anymo-" As Danny tried to prove his point by standing, he nearly fell flat on his face, needing to hug the wall to stay upright.

"Next I suppose you're gonna tell me Youngblood's suddenly gonna throw his little skeleton buddy away into an incredibly rare ghost black hole. Yeah, neither seems really likely at the moment," Sam deadpanned. Her tone immediately shifted into one of stern concern; she hated seeing Danny like this. "You've done all you can without the Deflector's help. Take the rest of the day off. It'll keep the poison from spreading around so quickly."

"But the more hands we have on deck," Danny said in between pants, "the faster this'll get done and then I won't even need to do anything to not spread the poison… cause then the poison'll already gonna be gone and it won' be there to spread anymore 'n stuff…" The boy began to slur his words noticeably as he rambled, causing Sam to have to force him to bed.

"Just take a nap for awhile Danny. I swear, if we need you, I'll wake you up." It was clear to Sam, however, that he was in another decline, and soon wouldn't be able to even help himself. By the time she turned to leave seconds later, the light had left his eyes and shallow breathing took over. He looked up blearily at her from the foot of his bed, confusion the mainstay of his expression, as he muttered something unintelligible to himself.

No sudden movements, that'll only scare him…, Sam thought to herself, and as she slowly and carefully lied his back under his covers and opened the bedroom door…

"SAM, GET IN HERE, EMBER'S GONE CRAZY!"

...Tucker was being Tucker.

Sam winced when she heard Danny jump abruptly behind her, and from his expression, he didn't exactly look lucid enough to recognize her.

"I guess this is why they call him 'Bad Luck Tuck'." Sam hissed under her breath frustratedly as she slowly turned to look at her confused friend. She was met with and ecto-blast nearly hitting her point blank in the face. What was it with him and trying to disfigure her face in these bouts, she wondered.

"Whoa, easy Danny… I'm not gonna hurt you." Sam didn't have to make another move for Danny to be prompted to attack again, shooting an entire stream of ice her way. But then you wouldn't hesitate if you were dead set on thinking you were fighting an angry Vlad.

"V-Vlad… din't do nothin'!" Danny's voice was thick with slurring and detachment. After a bit, as Tucker and Jazz finally subdued Ember and came to check on the group, he gripped his hair in his hands and made murmurs close to sounding like begging. He yelped when Sam got close enough to put a hand on his shoulder and give it a reassuring grip, thinking it was Vlad injecting him with something. Whatever he thought it was played strongly with the placebo effect as it were, as Danny soon began to have a sort of pseudo-panic attack.

"Sam, what happened?!" Tucker immediately was at his best friend's side as he began trembling and curling into a ball. His skin clammed up rather quickly and what was worse, it was evident that 103 fever from before was back with a vengeance.

"I-I was trying to get him to take a nap and then… THIS!" Sam had no idea what had happened. She thought she was handling it the best she could. Either all of those psychology seminars Jazz forced the trio to go to didn't help, or, even more scarily…

"The poison must be getting worse." Sam all but gasped out to herself.

"Everyone stay calm," Jazz said with authority, trying to hide she was very close to freaking out too. "We need to get him cooled off NOW." Tucker had already started dashing for the freezer downstairs to get the packs, and Jazz struggled with Danny to get his shirt off. They needed to see what was going on with his injuries.

More purple than green was oozed out when viewing the wound.

"More of his ectoplasm is getting corrupted…" Jazz said softly, wanting to look away but shying away from it to clean her ailing brother. Danny said nothing as Jazz cleaned him once again, only murmuring something about Vlad dunking him in lava with eyes tightly shut. It reminded the girls of the other ghosts' condition. Almost alarmingly so.

Tucker came rushing in with the ice packs, and their presence near the ill teenager began cooling him down, as if his ice core itself was directly taking the chill from them. As soon as the ice packs became too warm, they resorted to rubbing ice on Danny, hoping it would at the very least make him come to. While he cooled down, he was still under the grip the poison had on his mind.

The group shared a nervous look. Had the poison really overshadowed his mind that quickly? Was is too late to help him, and only 5 days into the sickness? Was the poison really this intense?

All fretting was temporarily ceased when they heard an ear-splitting screech from Ember next door.

"I thought you said you two used the Fenton Snoozer again." Sam glanced at Tucker, desperate for an explanation.

"I-I did. I used it full blast."

"SKULKUH, WERE DI' YOU PUH MY DA'N GUITAH'?!" Ember cried. She seemed to remember she didn't have her guitar, but by the thick slur in her voice, she clearly didn't recognize the place as Fenton Works. True she hadn't been to Jazz's room before, but it couldn't have looked like her own lair.

Tucker grabbed the net, already regretting being forced to put Ember in a net laced with pure sedative, but there was no choice. It was much better for Ember to sleep the poison off, if you could call her getting knocked out sleep. The techno geek bravely threw the net onto the ghost rocker and she passed back out, causing the trio to sigh in relief.

Attention turned back to Danny as he began to rouse, unable to remember the episode.

Or the entire day.

"Sam, Tucker, what are you guys doing here so early? It's like 6 in the morning. I know I said I'd come early bu-"

"Dude, it's 4:30 in the afternoon."

If any more of Danny's face could blanch, it would have at that moment. What the hell happened to the rest of the day?

"F-Four-thirty?!"

"Yeah. You don't remember getting trapped in your locker?"

He shook his head and gauged their reactions. They surely had to be joking with him, right? Surely this was like that one time after his first real ghost fight with Lunch Lady when Tucker told him he conked out for four days as a prank. Their reactions sadly said otherwise.

"Th-This poison is getting out of hand and we still have no clue who's behind this…" Danny said, horror and a bit of anguish creeping into his tone. Jazz immediately embraced him in a hug, rubbing his back in comfort.

"Shh… It's gonna be okay, little brother. We're gonna fix this no matter what it takes. Don't let the fear eat you up or it'll never get better." Danny nodded and began trying to stifle his sniffles, telling himself he couldn't give up yet.

"FREEZE, SPOOK!"

The quartet was startled by the sound of Jack's booming voice coming from nearby outside. From there, they plainly saw the two ghost-hunters drive by in the Ghost Assault Vehicle, chasing an apparently very quick ghost. They considered going out to help when Danny saw who it was.

"Oh my gosh." Danny said to himself. He nearly jumped out of the window when he saw her.

It was plain as day. She had on the same black and white color scheme as Phantom. Same snow-white hair, just with a ponytail added. Same electric green eyes. But smaller. Much younger. Glaringly female instead of Phantom's male.

"My parents are chasing Danielle…" He didn't know what not to believe more: That his parents were chasing after his sweet little 'cousin', who more than likely meant no harm and was either just passing through or looking for him, like it's open season; that there was a ghost (half in her case) left that was apparently healthy and not poisoned; or that Danielle was even here at all. It'd been months since he last saw her and he didn't think he'd really see her again.

Sam and Tucker recognized her easily too. They didn't see much of her, but Danny told them enough to get the gist. Jazz was the only one in the dark.

Danny would have burst onto the scene immediately if he was well enough, but even he realized at this point there was nothing he could do. So, he looked to the next best thing.

"Guys, please. You need to go out and save Dani before my parents catch her."

"On it." the two friends nodded and took off with the weapons meant for Ember, leaving Danny with Jazz.

"Um… who's Dani?" Jazz asked with her head tilted, causing Danny to form a sheepish blush.

"Trust me, I'll explain when they come back. It's a bit of a long story…"


	8. Chapter 7- Voices

_**So sorry this took me so long, but writer's block tends to hit me hard. Inspiration finally hit me though, so enjoy. Days are also now purposely gone from the titles for awhile as the poison begins to reach its full potency. Plus the fifth day holds a lot of significance as you'll see going forward, and it would be sort of repetitive to keep posting it.**_

Chapter 7- Voices

Sam and Tucker wracked their brains hard trying to figure out how to get Dani away from their friend's ghost-crazy parents. It was the first ghost the pair of hunters had seen in days and they surely weren't going to let her go.

"Can't we talk about this, you guys!?" The teen duo heard Dani cry in desperation. It was clear she didn't really appreciate the 'extra attention'. Another blast rang through the air, the female halfa's cries unanswered.

"What are we gonna do?!" Sam turned to Tucker for a bright idea, who simply shrugged. They didn't think it would help to use the powerful weapons they had at their disposal despite grabbing them in a rush, and they didn't think Danny would exactly like them shooting at his mom and dad.

Still, what choice did they have?

"I have an idea." Tucker muttered regretfully.

* * *

To think all Danielle wanted to do was go and mess with her dear old 'dad' for old times sake because she was feeling a bit nostalgic. She had no idea _this_ would be the result.

"In hindsight," Dani groaned to herself as she dodged another shot from Maddie's gun, "coming in broad daylight immediately after a school day wasn't one of my best ideas." She had been so excited earlier for a good pranking session too! Now these two had to go and kill the mood!

Eventually, Dani was cut off by Maddie's crazy husband suddenly dashing up in front of her, leading to her getting grabbed with little time to react inside of a net. The ghost girl tried to struggle free, but was cut off by the hunters cocking their weapons towards her with nasty glares.

"Don't even think about it, ghost…" Maddie said cooly in regards to her escaping. The woman was about to fire her weapon when a net from nowhere of all things wrapped around her.

Jack tried getting Maddie out but was hit with a direct hit from the Fenton Foamer, pinning him to the wall on contact.

"Wha…?" Dani looked around carefully. Did something just… save her?

Before she had time to ponder, her net was quickly taken off by Sam, who picked her up and started running her to Fenton Works. She was confused at first before recognizing the two teens with a few looks.

"Sam? Tucker? How did-"

"No time to explain now, Dani," Sam said as they approached the heavily decorated building, "Can you turn human really quick?"

Dani reluctantly flashed them a quick nod and reverted to human form, allowing the trio to slip into the building with ease. Being in her older cousin's home made her get excited to mess with Vlad all over again.

"Hey, so where's Danny? I was coming to see if he wanted to go and screw around with Vlad with me," Dani asked with an innocent smile, making the duo very nervous all of the sudden.

"Let's just say he's not feeling very well right now…"

* * *

Almost immediately after Sam and Tuck left, Jazz lost her brother again.

They were in the middle of a pretty steady conversation too. Jazz attempted to ease Danny's fears of the future, what with the blight ravaging him within his bloodstream. But then, mid-sentence, Danny paused and began to act strangely once again.

It started with him insistent that the the walls were beginning to grow clawed hands and move around them, then quickly delved into him muttering about the entire world currently being ravaged by his former future self, him tied up in a rope made from the insides of his former family. Within minutes, Danny was curled against the wall, rocking against it while he reveled in his own sick delusions, Jazz being able to do nothing but watch this time. Oh, how she wanted to help him, but he was too far gone to understand her. He had started to go on a tangent about ghost sharks with ecto-chainsaws when Sam, Tucker, and Dani finally arrived.

"...ey should be in here," Jazz heard Tucker say from the hall. It wouldn't be right at all to have Danielle see Danny like this, but at the same time, it would be cruel to hide this from the girl. From the little Danny managed to say about her before he began to lose his mind again, it sounded like he cared deeply for Danielle. The least Jazz and the others could do was allow her into the group.

Jazz looked when she heard the doorframe creek and there stood a little girl that looked a lot like Danny. Same shiny ebony hair, same brilliant blue eyes, just with a different choice of wardrobe and cute little beanie. The young girl peered shyly into the room only to be taken aback by the state of her cousin

"Danny?!" She cried in disbelief, and she was at the older hybrid's side in the blink of an eye. The worry became worse when any attempts to comfort him were met with flinching.

"How long's he been like this…?" Danielle asked in a tone that could break anyone's heart. Her head spun around when she heard the moan she identified as belonging to Ember. Danielle ran to Jazz's room and found Ember in the net in a similar, if not worse state. "What the heck is going on?!"

"That sedative wore out _already?!_ " Tucker said to himself in astonishment at Ember's awake and livid state.

The three older teens explained everything that went on that week, from what they knew of the ghost, to the first day Danny was infected, to the information the entire known Ghost Zone was infected. Danielle was shocked to find she was the only ghost they knew who wasn't poisoned.

"...I think we've beat around the bush enough with this. We need to go and talk to Vlad."

Everyone looked at Sam, a determined, furious glare on his face.

"Vlad would definitely do something this screwed up to get Danny to join him. He's probably waiting for Danny to come crawling to him begging for an antidote right now."

"But, if it was Vlad, why would he bother with the entire 'Zone?" Tucker questioned.

"Probably to throw us off," Jazz said bitterly. The group nodded and were about to choose who was going to take off for Vlad's Amity Park based estate when Danny suddenly shot up from the ground. Not a hint of recognition was present in his eyes as he gazed at the four of them.

"Dude, you in there?" Tucker asked carefully, daring to get closer. Predictably, Tucker almost got his arm frozen off when he reached his hand out to him.

In a daze, Danny muttered something unintelligible before a flash of light appeared around his waist. The quartet darkly joked to themselves he said something along the lines of 'Goin' Ghost.' based on what happened next.

Within seconds, hovering before them was Danny Phantom... an even further crazed, severely injured looking, hostile, not exactly all-there Danny Phantom.

The group backed away, knowing that not only did Danny seem to finally be able to transform again within fainting, now that the tainted ectoplasm had mixed in more completely, but now he had his entire arsenal of powers. From experience, the ectoplasm didn't seem to weaken his physical strength to top it off; in fact, it seemed to have the strange effect of _powering up_ an infected ghost if Ember was any indication. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see dealing with Danny, known throughout the Ghost Zone as one of the most powerful ghosts currently in existence, wouldn't be as 'fun' as handling Ember.

Worsening matters, the feral snarl Danny sent their way didn't do much to calm their nerves.

"This is bad," Sam meekly said as they all backed towards the door, saying aloud pretty much the entire group's collective thought.

* * *

"Don't worry, baby! I'll get you out of that net!"

Maddie smiled sadly as Jack made such an effort to get out of the Foam that it was almost comical. "Just try not to hurt yourself, hon," she warned when it looked like he was getting carried away. All fears subsided when Jack somehow found the strength to rip a chunk of wall away as he tore his right arm free.

"Whoa!" Jack said, shocking himself, "Guess I don't know my own strength!" He grinned brightly and pulled the rest of his body free, making his way over to his wife to free her when an ear splitting shriek made him pause. Both adults, as well as anyone within at least 3 miles of the town, covered their ears to keep them from blowing out. The noise happened again twice, and on the third go, the ghost hunters noticed a visible green wave… coming from their own house!

"Did you see that?!" Jack boomed furiously, the thought of a ghost somehow getting into his house in the first place enraging him.

"That was one of the strongest waves of ectoplasmic energy I've ever seen!"

"Come on! The kids could be in danger!" The duo raced to Fenton Works as fast as possible.

When the arrived, the entire second story roof was in shambles. What used to be Danny's room seemed to now be non existent, the hallway wall completely blown to bits by the power ectoplasmic… explosion was the only thing that could explain it.

And in the middle of it, four children; their baby girl, their baby boy's best friends, and a mystery girl lie unconscious against the walls. In what used to be Jazz's room lay an unconscious ghost girl, surrounded in what looked like purple ectoplasm. Ember McLain, they realized. What was _that_ awful, mind controlling spook doing in their house?!

They didn't have time to look around further, for soon they were face to face with an unsteady and dazed Phantom, glowering at them as he charged a blast of energy in each hand.


	9. Chapter 8- Confusion

Chapter 8: Confusion

"Phantom…?"

The two hunters looked at the ghost in front of them with wary eyes. It was best not to take any chances against such a powerful, high level entity.

Phantom whimpered as he suddenly let the charges go into the floor and held his head in pain, coughing up that purple ectoplasm they saw covering the ghost rocker girl.

"Jack, that ectoplasm is purple…" Maddie said warily, backing up as it became more and more clear something was seriously wrong with Phantom. Neither one of them knew what this meant, meaning they had no idea what they were dealing with… which meant they probably just made a huge discovery in the field of ectology. "We'd better get a sample."

They both nodded to themselves in self-assurance and made their move to the seemingly incapacitated Phantom, only to pause and cover their ears when he let loose a high-powered scream towards the ceiling. The resulting blast was the same that they just witnessed moments before, only this one left Phantom looking like he wanted to pass out and die all over again, the couple noted.

After a few minutes of inactivity, Phantom seemed to finally noticed them, wild fear striking him. He panted and whimpered as his eyes turned wide as saucers, and he shot a very far off ectoblast at the wall next to them with a strained yelp, not even close to his previously assumed target of the duo. With nothing left in him energywise, he curled up against the wall and muttered incoherently. Something about how the subterranean monkey-bears wanted to eat his insides.

Jack and Maddie shared a look of bewilderment and mild concern with one another. It was shocking seeing the normally cocky and playful Phantom in such a sorry state. Rambling and shooting at delusions instead of witty banter and having a pretty good shot? They just couldn't wrap their heads around it.

Their attention shot across the room to the now active Ember and they had to duck their heads when she chucked the remains of Jazz's bed at them in a blind rage, which quickly devolved into her squirming on the ground in agony, form oozing the purple ectoplasm at an increased rate as if it was causing her to destabilize. She let out an ear splitting shriek of her own before growing strangely quiet.

Maddie recovered first from the shriek and quickly nabbed an ectoplasm sample while her health wasn't at risk at the moment. The two were completely shaken up from this to say the least.

"I'm going to go get a few thermoses to keep them in," Jack said awkwardly as he hurried down to the lab, leaving Maddie by herself. To bide her time, she went over to investigate Phantom up close.

Upon closer inspection, the whole thing quickly began not sitting right with her. In the ghost's chest she could see gashes. Gashes she had seen him get days ago and hadn't even made an effort to heal at all. He had gotten those while trying to fight that ghost they all had encountered. She knew it was most likely part of his plan to fool the entire city into a false sense of security with his heroics, but he had tried to save them all the same, didn't he? Only to be rewarded with a very nasty looking injury that had obviously left something behind. Upon closer inspection, Phantom now only looked like a very sick and delirious teenage boy, a lot like Danny was days before; she and Jack would have to go looking for her baby boy the moment the ghosts were contained. She had to fight a strange, unconscious motherly urge to stroke the ghost child's hair and comfort him; he was too far gone for that anyways, not even acknowledging her presence from less than a foot away. Maddie jumped when he rambled on about toast stuffed with ice stars before he clutched his arms and trembled.

Did she really hate these ghosts that much to allow them to suffer like this?

Sure that the two of them weren't awake enough to leave, Maddie left to go and discuss what to do with Jack. As she left, Jazz and Tucker, them and the others temporarily forgotten in the ghost haze, began to regain consciousness.

"Remind me to never push Danny far enough to make him use a Ghostly Wail on me again," Tucker moaned groggily, rubbing his concussed head, "Getting hit point blank by it is _not_ fun…"

"You're telling me…" Jazz shook her head and blinked the darkness from her vision only to be met with the destroyed upper level of Fenton Works, a hole in the wall giving her a clear view of the Ops Center lying wrecked on the cement. Jazz only gasped, however, when she saw the state of her little brother.

Danny lie on his side, twitching periodically and hands clutching arms like a lifeline, flatly muttering nothing but completely and utter gibberish that no longer resembled words now. Purple ectoplasm, barely any traces of green or even red left, flowed free as his body became wracked with harsh coughs. His eyes were rolled, sunken-in and half staffed, no ethereal glow left in them, covered slightly by the unruly and faded mess that was Phantom's typically pure white hair. His aura near non-existent. His well kept jumpsuit barely hanging off of him, in tatters. The great and powerful Danny Phantom was currently a withered shell of his normal self, just like any other ghost in the 'Zone.

All of that should _not_ be used as a description for the state of a usually pun filled and snarky 15-year old, Jazz thought bitterly.

The two now fully awake teens rushed to Danny's side when they saw he was quickly losing consciousness. He couldn't keep his transformation up unconsciously, and if the Fentons saw their son in such a sorry state, or worse, see him transform back then and there, things would only become more of a hassle. They couldn't let Danny's secret be revealed like this. Not at the worst possible time.

Tucker grabbed both sides of Danny' face, lightly shaking him and trying to get him to come to his senses while Jazz tried waking Sam and Danielle.

"C'mon man, snap out of it, your parents could come back any minute!" A groan and a cough was the ghost boy's only response.

Tucker grew increasingly desperate when the familiar white rings began to faintly flicker across Danny's chest, threatening to transform him back to human. He needed to wake his friend up _NOW…_

The techno-geek dashed into what used to be the bathroom and filled a cup with hot water; mixed with Danny's naturally cold core, it would feel like the boy got a bucket of ice poured onto him. Perfect for a little wake-up call.

"Sorry about this…"

The moment the water hit, Danny bolted right up, a loud yelp falling from his throat. It was enough to make Sam and Dani stir, and thankfully not enough to draw the attention of his parents.

" _Seriously Tucker?!"_ Danny phased the water off of his person and slugged his friend in the arm with an exasperated growl. Tucker and Jazz could only laugh at his reaction before sobering at seeing their friend/brother's still worse-for-wear look.

"Are you alright?" Jazz asked him, letting him assess for himself.

When the initial irritation cleared, Danny noticed that he felt, ominously, MUCH better than he did before now that the tainted ectoplasm was beginning to normalize in his body. He couldn't feel the haze eating up the back of his mind anymore. His thoughts felt clearer, much clearer than they had been earlier. His mood was immediately lifted. He wasn't hallucinating or on the verge of losing consciousness anymore. He felt… healthy, all things considered. It sent chills down his spine and he assumed it instantly to be a bad omen that something bad was about to happen.

"I haven't felt this good since before I got my powers…" Danny answered truthfully, tension clear in his tone. "I'm not entirely sure this is a good thing."

Just as things seemed to be calming down for the time being, Jazz noticed the purple glow beginning to take up the entirety of Danny's eyes.

* * *

"I don't know if it's such a good idea honey."

Jack and Maddie were discussing a plan of action with the ghosts in the safe confines of their basement lab. Maddie wished to share her idea with her husband, wishing he'd be a little more supportive. She only wished to do the right thing: putting these ghosts out of their misery while they were down would surely be the right thing, right?

"Think about it: their structures are too damaged to study, they wouldn't be able to go escape out in a daze and wreak havoc and we'd be rid of two incredibly dangerous ghosts."

"But Mads, we'd _finally_ have Phantom to study after so long of hunting him down. We can't just destroy him because he's a little sick..." Jack pouted and whined like a child having to do an incredibly tedious chore.

"I saw him up close, how much agony he seemed to be enduring. I know ghosts aren't supposed to feel any pain, that it's all just some kind of illusion, but in Phantom's case, at least, it seemed to be… well, almost real. If we don't do this, we could potentially be letting a sentient creature suffer."

Jack sighed, nodding lightly in understanding. It had come to his attention that Phantom wasn't like the others, due to personal experience. On a patrol one night, the hunter caught him chugging down a can of soda and doodling goofy little pictures of his ghost 'buddies' on a sheet of paper, laughing and relishing at making them as stupid looking as possible. There was one of Technus inside a robot, doing the Egyptian, one of Fright Knight in an apron making, of all things, pumpkin pie, and the less said about Skulker in a frilly Shirley Temple-like costume the better.

When caught, the ghost only blinked and said to him, "What, you gotta relieve stress _somehow_ ," before taking off scared for his afterlife. He left behind the drawing, and Jack still had it hidden away in his planning notebook for safekeeping. It was proof that Phantom was different, only making Jack want to hunt him more… and it made it easier to accept Maddie's reasoning in the long run. This finally seemed to make everything click for him.

"You're right…" Jack muttered regretfully, and went to go and get a vial of Ecto Dejecto to do the deed. He had no idea that it only really strengthened ghosts.

Satisfied, Maddie was about to lead Jack back up to do what needed to be done when the portal opened without their permission. In front of them within the next moment was a rather large ghost, adorned with a cape and massive claws on each hand. The look immediately harkened back to that encounter they and Phantom had earlier in the week.

"Mads, look, it's that ghost from Monday night!" Jack yelled as the both pointed loaded ecto guns to the offender.

"How dare you come bursting into my home, you evil spirit?!" Maddie cried, anger from this ghost trying to kidnap her not yet quenched. In response, the ghost only laughed.

"Cute… you think your little toys can harm my person…" the ghost said in a silky tone, looking mockingly at its claws like looking at finger polish dry. It easily phased through each shot that came its way, and a purple ecto blast of his own sent them both flying into the wall.

The hunters growled in pain as the ghost came walking toward them in a brisk pace.

"Now that you are disarmed, perhaps, I can now formally introduce myself…" the ghost began,"I go by many names… "The Dreaded Spectral Plaguemaster", "The Poisonous Peril", more annoyingly "Toxie" by that annoying ghost, Klemper before I wiped that smile off his face... but you and the rest of you pitiful humans may simply call me…" the ghost got up into each of their faces, a toxic substance dripping from the points of each of its claws.

"...Blight."

 _ **So, the ghost causing all of this madness, Blight, has decided to reveal himself to the Fenton duo, and next up we get to be told the exact, sickening intricacies of what his poison does to everyone. It isn't pretty...**_


	10. Chapter 9- Degradation of Humanity

Chapter 9- Gradual Degeneration of Humanity

"So, _this_ is the infamous Fenton duo, two of the most idiotic and dangerous ghost hunters in the human world, more feared than the moronic and paranoid Guys in White, known throughout the Ghost Zone as cruel to our kind and unrelenting when it comes to pain, and here you both are cowering at my, a simple 'reflection of post human consciousness', feet…"

"You really think we're dangerous?" Jack said with a smile full of self-pride, completely blanking out the rest of what Blight had said. If she wasn't still too stunned to move, Maddie would have facepalmed. Blight happily obliged for her in that front.

"What's your business, ghost?!" Maddie practically growled, as a cornered animal would. Blight chuckled to himself and flicked his right hand up, letting poison flow out of his claws like a waterfall. The substance quickly began melting through the floor.

"To finish what I started."

Without hesitation, Blight allowed his poison to drip onto the controls of the Fenton Portal, melting the lock on it down and causing it to spontaneously open. Within minutes, the lab was flooded with ghosts, from the already mindless to the getting-there humanoid ones, eyes glowing and bodies peppered with a sickly purple. The two could only watch as all of the crazed and ailing ghosts filed outside and began to cause destruction.

Soon after, Tucker came bursting into the lab, grabbing as many ecto guns, thermoses, and ectoplasm charges his arms could carry. Through the now open lab door, roars and inhuman snarls erupted, one sounding male and one female.

" _TUCKER HURRY UP, WE CAN'T HOLD THEM BACK FOREVER!"_

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Tucker cried, irritated that he was being so rushed. Before dashing back up the stairs, he turned to Jack and Maddie and politely said, "I'm just gonna borrow these real quick, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton," before taking off, screaming a battle cry. The two hunters turned to Blight for an explanation, a cruel smile visible on the ghost's face.

"I see my precious toxin has finally overtaken Phantom and that rocker girl." Jack was the first to be able to move again after the blast, and he quickly grabbed onto an ecto gun and trained it to the .

"You have five seconds to explain yourself before I blast you apart molecule by molecule…"

"Gladly. I just _know_ you'll want to hear my tale to completion," Blight began after waiting exactly five seconds to aggravate Jack.

"Ghosts, contrary to what you two pitiful _humans_ might believe, have minds. While there are the odd oafish, monstrous beasts among us, we are at least capable of a human's level of higher order thought. While we are more impulsive and obsession driven, human psychology can mostly pertain to us. Now, my poison has the ability to both temporarily paralyze humans, as I'm sure you're experiencing due to my 'ecto blast', and disrupt the thought processes of my fellow specters. Normally, I'd be parading around the farthest reaches of the Ghost Zone, pulling the odd prank here and there to anyone who floated my way, but then I heard about a new ghost. Danny Phantom, or _Phantom_ as you humans wish to call him." Blight paused mockingly.

"What does he have to do with this?" Maddie asked, getting angrier and angrier by the minute at the situation. She felt sort of sorry for the kid, but he was now somehow involved...

"Well, the residents of the realm kept saying all of this insane dribble about Phantom being an incredibly rare _halfa_ of all things. Before Phantom, only one halfa was currently in existence. I had to see it for myself, so I traveled to the human world and what I found was… interesting.

"Upon spotting the ghost boy, I had the great pleasure of seeing him turn human." If it was possible, the ghost's smile only got wider and crueler. "Scrawny child in reality. Most likely couldn't even lift an average human backpack upon first glance. Hair black as the night sky and eyes as blue as ice. A nice contrast to toxic green and bright white… is it not?"

The two hunters looked at each other. They couldn't have known who he was talking about yet, but they had a sick, subconscious feeling they knew where this was going.

"Yes, it was a great honor to see the halfa transform. I was so astonished, I returned the next day to view it again only to find _you two hunting him…"_ The ghost immediately let his kept in rage fly out unchecked, startling Maddie and making Jack try to get a shot in. Blight was hit, but retaliated by slashing Jack in the chest, making him as stiff as a board.

"Jack!" Maddie cried.

"Fool shouldn't have interrupted." Blight glared at Jack's prone form before calming down and continuing. "As I was saying, it was quite a shock to view such an atrocity. I had asked around and learned of the existence of ghost hunters. No one was willing to do _anything_ about it because it was _common._ You both especially because what you're hunting technically isn't even a full ghost; he's partly human! You're hunting your own kind!"

Maddie was taken aback by the ghost's rant. Why did he care so much about this? She could have sworn they were completely apathetic on human affairs; it was clear most of the Ghost Zone didn't even like Phantom, either.

And the revelation that Phantom is partly human… it certainly changed her perspective on the supposed malevolent ghost. Being partly human means that he wouldn't be as obsession driven as other ghosts, so… he was really trying to help others all that time? But then what of the robberies and the mayor atrocity, the theft of their ecto suit and all the times she caught him snooping outside their house? What could it all mean?

"And do you want to know the sweet icing on the cake, _human_ …?" Blight said in a chilled voice, making Maddie's attention turn back to him.

"Not only are you hunting your own kind… you're hunting your own child."

* * *

Just upstairs in the kitchen, the building had devolved into chaos. In droves, ghosts flowed from the portal into the outside world without check. The three humans and the only sane (half) ghost for miles, maybe at all if Vlad or even Clockwork somehow got infected, could only watch as screams of unsuspecting citizens and explosions filled the air. They couldn't stay in one place for long, for they were under attack themselves.

Ember was long gone, that much they knew due to the fact there wasn't a bit of regular ectoplasm left in her, but they still desperately tried talking sense into Danny as the two mindlessly attacked the quartet… or rather, Ember attacked the quartet; Danny hadn't begun specifically attacking them yet as his mind was suffering the same meltdown Ember's had. Shots were fired at complete random as Danny flew off the handle and screamed at things that weren't there, what was left of the building slowly being destroyed in his wake. The walls, ceiling, and floor were peppered with ectoplasmic ice. And the more it went on, the more crazed he began to sound, the more it made the group's hearts hurt.

"Tucker, give me a Thermos," Jazz demanded, practically snatching one out of the techno geek's hands. Without pause, she sucked Ember into it while she was momentarily distracted with torching the couch. One ghost down, about thousands more to go.

"Great," Sam said, "now that she's out of the way, what are we gonna do about Danny?" She looked up just in time to see a shot coming her way. She ducked in time, grumbling about how Danny was still aiming for her face.

"I'll distract him, you suck him into a Thermos," Dani suggested, turning into Dani Phantom before anyone could stop her, calls for her to come back to shelter falling on deaf ears.

"Sorry about this, cuz." Reeling her hand back, she made an ectoblast land straight into Danny's chest, forcing an abrupt crash into the wall.

* * *

A pained whine escaped Danny's lips as his glazed eyes darted around in fear, wondering what had just attacked him. His breath became more wild, sputters of purple ectoplasm becoming more frequent. He coughed up about a gallon of the substance before trying to get up, only to be stopped by what felt like a two ton brick placing itself in the middle of his body.

Danny panicked, thrashing his body to try and get free from the shadows now in front of him. The shadows began to speak, their incomprehensible murmuring not having any affect on the halfa. He tried summoning a Ghostly Wail, but as the first waves burst out of his mouth, something covered it. He flailed his arms to get the substance off, but it only seemed to glue his hand to it. A bright light then slowly tried engulfing the boy, this being his breaking point.

Summoning a burst of strength, Danny broke free of the paralyzing hold the shadows had on him, making it free to the outside world.

* * *

"Danny, wait!" Sam called, trying and failing to get the ghost boy's attention as he made a mad dash for the front door. By the time the others could get up from being thrown off, he had already cleared out of Fenton Works and began heading towards Casper High. "We need to follow him!" Sam was about to take off before getting her arm grabbed by Jazz.

"Sam we can't right now! There's too many crazed ghosts out there."

"Without a plan, we're gonna get blasted apart!" Tucker cut in."

"I don't care!" Sam broke away from the group and went to follow her ailing best friend out into the war zone. The others were just about to try and stop her before it was too late, but were interrupted when they saw Jack and Maddie come dashing up the stairs and out the door with large scale containment units and weapons galore, all of them looking like they had fast alterations made to them. A single variant of the capture devices rest at the very top, marked with a large, crudely drawn DP emblem.

"Where's Phantom?" Maddie asked the kids, determination set in stone on their expression. Looks of horror crossed their faces at the mention of him. They were surely trying to capture him while he was in his currently insane state.

"Mom, Dad, wait!" Jazz, said. "Y-You can't jus-"

"That's our baby boy out there and we're not going to let him suffer out there!" This single statement shocked the kids into silence. Seeing the had nothing to say, the Fenton duo hopped into the RV and took off with every intention of safely securing Phantom and any ghost they came across.

"WE'RE COMING DANNO, HANG IN THERE!" Jack could be heard bellowing.

As they watched the RV drive off into the downtown area, only one thought crossed their minds:

"...THEY KNOW?!"

 _ **The Fentons finally know that Fenton is Phantom, and rioting ghosts have struck the citizens of Amity, now including Danny. Can Sam convince Danny to come back with them before it's too late, and are Blight's intentions to cause the ghosts to go out of control merely born of spite? At least one of these questions will be answered next time! ._.**_


End file.
